Immigrant, Montana

Author: Amitava Kumar

I am shocked to see the long list of praise from all the editorial reviews on the Amazon page for this book. People called it "cerebral" and "sensual". To me it was just a series of affairs. 

From the author's point of view its the story of an american immigrant from india who is a grad student and a teaching assistent. However, unlike most of the Indians who come to the US for higher studies, the protagonist has come to America to have sex with white women.  

There's some interesting lines like students in India are forced to memorize Wordsworth's poems "about daffodils without having a clue of what those flowers looked like".  Another line I liked was a comment describing a Starbucks at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. "People come here with their bladders full and their gas tanks empty".

I found the authors use of footnotes rather strange. It seems like something he wrote in the main body, but later decided to demote as a footnote. I could not figure out if it was important to read the footnote or whether it was an unnecessary digression in the narrative. 

Overall, the book fell flat for me.